South Bound

1/1/12 – 2/1/12: Boat Launch and Inner Nicaragua: The leaks in the bilge were strange. After the outer keel had been opened and refiberglassed and gelcoated the diesel wanted to leak in to the bilge and the salt water wanted to leak in to the diesel tank. It took a lot of thinking, assuming and frustrations to believe that may be the diesel leaked in to the structures and then water as a heavier substances leaked in to the the tank the same way. The options were to open the bottom again and start laying fiber way inside and up or open the top and do the same. The access was hard but it was faster from the top so I chose this one. We had to create some weird looking tools by welding drill bits and dremmel tips in the end of 3 foot rebars to reach to sand the bottom and inside.

Meanwhile I had made a plan to get the diesel straightened with my Nica guys I took some days off to Ometepe, a volcanic island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua to chill and Managua to get parts and see the night life.

At Ometepe my favorite thing to do was to rent a motorcycle and ride it aside the bigger volcano to the the far most one where the road turned in to curvy and the vegetation jungly. It was extremely relaxed place with chillier climate. Typical animals were monkeys and visitors some sort of eco-hipsters. There were bunch of farms where everything was self-sustained including water, food and the shitter. It was somewhat more work to live that way as all the little packages produced in the farm needed to be cooked by yourself and things were slightly more difficult compared to regular modern western life but for a boat life familiar Captain, all piece of cake. The variety of eco-hipsters was hilarious and it brought some long-needed colorfulness to sometimes semi-depressive San Juan atmosphere. The first time I met my future deckhand and who knows what, Rachel. The second time I got pulled over with my motorcycle without helmet and the legitimate explanation turned out to be that that it was too dangerous to use helmet as its looseness could jeopardize my and other people’s lives. The third time I accidentally turned my eco-hipster friend from Finland back in to a modern westerner as soon as he realized how much work the eco-hipsterism required. Generally speaking the eco-hipsters didn’t approve my way of arriving with a motorcycle and whereabouts of where to call my teleconference, but I was still adaptive to the way of life which may have opened some social activities at my visits.

Managua was like mini Los Angeles with trees everywhere. It seemed like never ending forest village with traffic. You could find almost anything in Managua in terms of parts or services. The night life was nice, but started kind of late for a middle-aged Captain. Few of the town’s six discos started popping off at elevenish every night. The entrance fee was seven dollars and was including free drinks all night. Maybe this was the reason that it was hard to leave, at least alone.

Finally after several revisits on the diesel tank leaks and postponing lowering the boat couple of more days I finally gave it a go despite of Rigoberto’s ( my mechanic ) warning finger swinging doomingly in front of my nose and his words were echoing in my dreams repeating “Nada esta listo antes se ha terminado todo”. When the crane finally pulled in after five times of scheduling it over the last 7 weeks Carlos, the manager and the crane guy Louis came to ask some Coca-Cola. Certainly they wanted it with rum.
What came in to the boat condition, I was feeling semi-relaxed despite of normal panic in these conditions at least looking at the other Captains over the last few months. Likewise other boat’s my boat did not have a valid insurance any more which felt a bit u
The wooden supports collapsed as soon as the crane started lifting the boat. Francisco and the other guys were painting the spots where the supports had been. The crane moved steadily toward the concrete wall when the loud crowd of helpers started yelling in chorus as the dinghy was stuck on the next boats rigging and was endangering the whole operation as the more push could have caused a domino effect of boats falling on to the crane and other boats and mine falling half way on the concrete wall and diving down the edge. A couple of swings later the dinghy was freed.
At the point when the crane started lowering the boat it got stuck on the back stay and now the choir was yelling at me to detach the back stay in order to save the mast. After loosening the back stay and some swinging of the boat, the back stay got freed.
Once the boat hit the water I ran to take off the crane straps. Everything seemed to be cool until Rigoberto’s panicking voice arrived in my ear channels. I ran inside and looked what he was looking at. The diesel was spraying out from the filling pipe of the tank in a way that it looked like I had constructed a diesel fountain right inside the bilge. I and all the other ones were imagining that the salt water was entering the tank and pushing the diesel out of the tanks and that there was about 5 minutes time to get the boat out of the water again until it would sink. I yelled as loud as I could to the crane and other choir guys that we need the straps back, the boat is sinking. After putting all the straps back on, Rigoberto’s voice came up again, this time a bit more relaxed. Looking at the bilge the perfect diesel fountain had disappeared and all seemed calm. Again we all realized at the same time that the water pressure from the ocean had pushed the tanks in the keel to a smaller size and as full as it was, caused it overflow. All seemed good to go now. Just the tow guy, Che was missing as he had left after the panic situation. Rigo and Francisco helped to get the boat safely to an anchorage with Che towing the boat and all was back to normal boat life in water.

The next day good friend of mine arrived from Finland. We spent a few days looking for real estates for businesses and homes in San Juan and doing long bicycle trips to far most beaches to surf and some yoga early in the mornings. Then we took off for a Nica inland excursion.